For Foucault said this rightly in his intepretation of Kant’s Was ist Aufklarung, that Kant’s critiques or philosophical ethos can be reduced to a “limit attitude” that of a critique (or series of critiques) consisting in analyzing and reflecting upon the limits of our understanding and Reason. This is important for in the age of englightenment where man may “[more] freely deal with things,” man cannot transgress the truth-claims he is permitted to make. As Foucault writes, the Englightenment is the moment when humanity will put reason to use without subjecting it to any authority and it is precisely at this moment that the critique is necessary, since its role is precisely that of defining the conditions under which the use of reason is legitimate in order to (a) determine what can be known, (b) what must be done and (c) what maybe hoped. For Kant, (a) and (c) takes up a large proportion of his efforts and time and it is to (a) and (c) I will try to discuss more about.
In trying to discuss (a) and (c), I will use a particular example that Kant has only very briefly touched upon. He very vaguely says: “…because religious incompetence is not only the most harmful but also the most degrading of all.” From S83-S91 of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment, Kant wants to say that in the mere mechanism of nature, the empirical reality that we can find no final end(s) defined as that end which needs no other as the condition of its possibility [CTPJ, pp. 302] or in layman terms and for our purposes, God. Everything in nature (material nature outside us and even inside us i.e. our thinking nature ) that we can see is always in turn conditioned. If so, Kant wants to say 2 things. Firstly that “if [final ends is] in the order of ends dependent on no further condition other than merely the idea of it [CTPJ pp. 302],” then we cannot find anything in nature that gives us any reason to claim that “God exists.” In fact, we cannot have valid objective cognition (i.e. have an empirical intuition of God in or from nature). “God” Secondly, Kant would eventually want to say is an ideal of Reason. Whose Reason? Our Reason. In the world, there is only a single sort of being whose causality is teleological aimed at ends (humans). But because humans’ causality is so constituted i.e. interpretable as so structured by laws themselves, that we humans too have to follow to determine ends and create order and connections in the world, these transcendental a priori laws becomes represented by humans to themselves as something out there in-itself, unconditioned and independent of natural conditions and themselves. But in fact, these transcendental a priori laws are constituted in humans themselves. Man is the one who sets the highest end, the highest good in the world.
“[Man’s] existence contains the highest end itself, to which, as far as he is capable, he can subject the whole of nature, or against which at least he need not hold himself to be subjected by any influence from nature. – Now if things in the world, as dependent beings as far as their existence is concerned, need a supreme cause acting in accordance with ends, then the human being is the final end of creation; for without him the chain of ends subordinated to one another would not be completely grounded; and only in the human being, although in him only as a subject of morality, is unconditional legislation with regards to ends to be found, which therefore makes him alone capable of being a final end, to which the whole of nature is teleologically subordinated.” [CTPJ pp. 302]
Even happiness Kant puts on the sidenote is a subjective end of humans. Not the final ends of humans. With this, quote, it is clear that Kant wants to establish (stronger sense: establishes) that the final end of humans is his own existence wherefrom everything sprints forth. Thus in light of the Aufklarung, Kant in his 3rd Critique wants to first establish that 1) Man is the ultimate subject of all teleological causality. He is the final end in himself. Hence, he has freedom and thus, autonomy and power to act in this and that way in the Age of Enlightenment. But this is only one part of the story for there is the “negative-limits” of what man can say or do with his freedom which is the (a) that I ambition to only briefly cover.
It is common for man to infer from the ends of nature that he cognizes empirically to the supreme cause of nature and its properties. Kant calls this, physicotheology which is I think one of the commonest amongst layman of the existence of God i.e. that there is X Y Z things in nature with specific X Y Z properties that are unique to it and if it is not created by man, it must be created by God. But this is what Kant replies us with:
“Now I say physicotheology, no matter how far it might be pushed, can reveal to us nothing about a final end of creation; for it does not even reach the question about such an end [CTPJ pp. 304].” When we empirically intuit something, we only see it as the appearance it manifests to our faculty of sensibility and it makes conceptual sense after it goes through our faculty of understanding. But the very concept of a world cause, i.e. God, cannot be justified by it for nothing in that empirical intuition presents God to us. Thus Kant continues by saying that: “It can thus certainly justify the concept of an intelligent world-cause [emphasis added], as a merely subjectively appropriate concept for the constitution of our cognitive faculty [emphasis added] of the possibility of the things that we make intelligible to ourselves in accordance with ends;” Thus, what Kant wants to say here is that the intuition or representation serves only as a justification [emphasis added] of the concept of an intelligent-world cause but this is far from claiming [emphasis added] that there is a “God that exists out there.” Also then, the concept of God at most can only have an appropriate connexion to our cognitive faculty of the possibility of things (refers most aptly to the faculty of our Reason creating the possible ideas). I think another short abstract deals with this much better:
“But since the data and hence, the principles for determining that concept of an intelligent world cause (as highest artist) are merely empirical, they do not allow us to infer any properties beyond what experience reveals to us in its effects: which since it can never comprehend the whole of nature as a system, must often hit upon grounds of proof that (to all appearance) contradict one another as well as that concept, but it can never, even if we were able of having an empirical overview of the whole system as long as it concerns mere nature, elevate us beyond nature to the end of its existence itself, and thereby to the determinate concept of that higher intelligence.” [CTPJ pp. 305]
What can be drawn from the above is again that empirical data that we intuit from our faculty of sensibility is simply empirical data as what it is. There is such a vast amount of data in the world that we can simply pick on anyone and find that something we picked on contradicts with the one that we apparently used to justify God’s existence. The empirical intuition or “data” is one very tiny fragment of the whole complete system of nature whereas “God” as an ideal of Reason is if we recall, a final end of nature defined also as the totality that encompasses. Thus, Kant is saying here in this quote that as long as we can never have a total empirical overview of the whole system, we have no rights to make that huge inferential leap to say X justifies God exists, hence God exists. Nothing from empirical experience can sufficiently [emphasis added] be “fitted” to the determinate concept of God (ideal). Yet I must add also this, that it is not always the scrupulous or iniquitous nature of man who makes such an error but it is inherent in us to make such an error especially if we do not understand how our faculties work. Thus for instance, if one does not understand what is meant by the “faculty of judgment” i.e the faculty for thinking of the particular as contained under the universal dem Allgemeinen, then we will not know that once the universal (the rule; law; principle) is gven, then it is in our determining power of judgment [emphasis added] to subsume any particular under it. If we are ignorant to this, then we can easily and fallaciously make that unjustified inferential leap. Hence, the Age of Enlightenment whereby we can speak freely of this and that and use Reason is drastically different and disparate from the Attitude of Enlightenment [emphasis added] which involves knowing the limits of our Reason and on a more positive note, understanding our various faculties.
Hence, I arrive at the last part of what Foucault has re-wrote as (c) what can be hoped for a posteriori the understanding of how our faculties work and the limits of our faculties and hence Reason. Prior to that, I must emphasize that this short essay is not going to give insights to the “how our faculty works” question which is far beyond what I can accomplish at this moment in time. But the problematique is still this: that if we cannot say that God exists, or a highest legislative author exists theoretically [emphasis added], since we cannot have sufficient empirical data or intuitions that adequately support such a total final being, what then can we say? Also, how can or should we act? Here, Kant throws in the Practical Use of Reason. God for Kant is still important for our practical moral needs. If God does not belong to speculative reason and theoretical cognition, for Kant, it belongs to morality alone. God freedom and immortality are thus objects of a moral faith. In a paper by Jane Kellner, she describes this moral faith as a ‘motivation’ or what I think can be called a reason-able motivation [emphasis added]. Kant’s God is thus that of a holy lawgiver, good governor and just judge [RWTLORA pp. lxi]. These cannot be theoretically conceived but can be practically and morally conceived for the purpose of making or more precisely put, motivating man to be a morally rational being. But just on an ending note, what makes man moral is his own looking upon his own [emphasis added] law of reason like duty [emphasis added] as his highest allegiance [emphasis added]. Man is subjected to his own law of reason that acts as his voice of duty i.e. like the categorical imperative calling upon him to do what is right (based on his own law of reason; moral law). As a binding law or duty that man places upon himself via. His self legislative reason (and with faith in postulates of God), man Kant thinks will be obligated [emphasis added] to do the right thing. Most cardinally, to be in such a way morally obligated by one’s own law of reason or moral law, this must be predicated first on the freedom to act in accordance with man’s own laws. Upon this freedom is man’s own moral law or law of reason grounded. Freedom is in this case, man’s ultimate a priori and only by adhering to man’s own self prescribed moral law can man attain Summum Bonum i.e happiness proportioned to moral worth [RWTLORA pp. lvii]. Happiness i.e. Summum Bonum is like God, man’s rational ideals that man must have faith in for something like the Summum Bonum, as an end created by man is not something guaranteed. Even with the most punctilious observance of the moral laws, we may not attain Summum Bonum [RWTLORA pp. lvi].
Thus, man’s freedom in the Age of Enlightenment reigns supreme. He has freedom to act but he is not entirely free to act and Reason as he wishes. The discursive limits of our Reason and truth-claims will only be apparent if one understand how one’s faculties work. Aufklarung ist hence, an attitude that one must take upon himself to study and understand our faculties. This was Kant’s critical transcendental project for a major part of his life. What then may we hope for? We can still in the crudest sense, ‘talk God,’ ‘immortality,’ ‘freedom,’ and ‘soul’ but one must always be conscious of talking about them as theoretical cognitions that have objective validity or are they ideals of reason as like for Kant, for a greater (greatest) purpose, man?
“Here are the limits of our reason clearly delineated. Whoever presumes to overstep them will be punished for his zeal by reason itself with disgust and error. But if we remain within these limits, we shall be rewarded by becoming both wise and good [RWTLORA pp. lxii].”
Footnotes:
1. “…as a scholar whose writings speak to his public, the world, the clergyman in the public use of reason enjoys an unlimited freedom to use his own reason and to speak in his own person.
2. Practical Reason for Kant comes into play where theoretical reason and cognition reaches its limit – in the comprehension of God, Freedom and Immortality of the Soul. In general then, Practical Reason becomes associated with a moral duty with regards to (a) man’s use of freedom (b) to act in morally respectable ways and this can be motivated by (or in a stronger sense: conditioned by) a practical faith in God which is argued for by Kant in his later works - Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone.
3. This is not to be taken in the sense of a literal “culimination” point of Reason. For Kant, Reason is the “highest faculty” of cognition. Ideas of reason have formative power to ground the possibility of the [insertion: new] products of nature [CTPJ pp. 248]. Reason described by Kant as a faculty of desire legislates a priori as the supersensible in the subject [insertion: without the constraining binds of the theoretical understanding], for an unconditioned practical cognition i.e. practical ideas and final ends i.e. freedom and causality of itself [CTPJ. 80]. Kant’s transcendental philosophy establishes how theoretical cognition cannot give us valid objective knowledge of the concept of freedom. But Kant still wants to ground “freedom” as an immanent right of man. Hence, he claims that ‘freedom’ is presupposed a priori and “that which presupposes this a priori freedom is [man’s] power of judgment which provides the mediating concept between the concepts of nature and the concept of freedom [insertion: note – supersensible] [CTPJ pp. 81]” so that the transition from 1) the theoretical and the need to abide to the lawfulness of nature; concepts of nature to 2) final end in accordance with the purely practical [insertion: ideas of Reason] is possible. How this transition is made will not be discussed here. But through our faculty of understanding (that contains constitutive principles; transcendental categories), we have only a theoretical cognition of nature in its mechanistic lawfulness. The very possibility of Understanding’s a priori categories and laws for nature gives us cognition of nature only as lawful and abiding appearances and indicates [insertion: merely] of an undetermined supersensible substratum that our theoretical understand can grasp nothing of. But, the power of judgment that through being able to by feelings of pleasure and displeasure give purposiveness to the world provides determinability of this supersensible substratum i.e. through its very ability to give purposiveness and determine this and that in nature, we can somewhat grasp this supersensible substratum’s determinability and that it is able to determine this and that. Yet, determination of this supersensible substratum is given by Reason that legislates a priori (via final ends man sets for himself) for his own freedom [CTPJ, pp. 81-82]. The point that I hope to have brought out is thus that very generally put, it is man’s ultimate right to use Freedom for himself and
4. Refer to Kant’s analogies in CTPJ
5. This must be seen in light of the First Critique of Pure Reason where Kant explores the transcendental nature of how we can perceive things (through sensibility) have valid cognition of things (when what is intuited from empirical reality “fits into” the a priori categories which gives these raw intuitions order and coherence).
6. This argument can be found in the previous sections where Kant gives some interesting analogies on the “Vegetable Kingdom” etc. I will not go further here.
7. Refer to The Critique of Pure Reason – Transcendental Analytic: Ch1 Section III: The Pure Concepts of the Understanding or Categories and for further reference, The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding.
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